"Joe Okonkwo is a poet of distinct percussion and considerable repercussion, who addresses his subject matter with invigorating urgency."—Gay City News, 2002
From "The Blues"
The Blues seduced me with a whisper and
smacked me upside the head
like a cussin’ old black woman.
When it whispered,
it lured me, vamp-style,
with glinting smile
and mahogany hips,
waltzed me to the cliff’s
tempting edge,
and then, with a shimmer
and a sashay,
tried to caress me into jumping.
From "Riff"
As we cuddle,
we are cushioned
in a tenderness
that explodes
like the universe being born,
pressed like flowers
into a memory book of love,
soothing as warm chicken soup,
tantalizing as the sweet
fermented bite of a hot toddy
or a blues riff.
From "She Dances"
She is a surge of brown light:
caramel skin,
short, tightly curled black hair,
tongue dipped
in acid
or shit
or truth.
She slides
through space,
a sinewy muse dancing
out poems...
The Blues seduced me with a whisper and
smacked me upside the head
like a cussin’ old black woman.
When it whispered,
it lured me, vamp-style,
with glinting smile
and mahogany hips,
waltzed me to the cliff’s
tempting edge,
and then, with a shimmer
and a sashay,
tried to caress me into jumping.
From "Riff"
As we cuddle,
we are cushioned
in a tenderness
that explodes
like the universe being born,
pressed like flowers
into a memory book of love,
soothing as warm chicken soup,
tantalizing as the sweet
fermented bite of a hot toddy
or a blues riff.
From "She Dances"
She is a surge of brown light:
caramel skin,
short, tightly curled black hair,
tongue dipped
in acid
or shit
or truth.
She slides
through space,
a sinewy muse dancing
out poems...
